Video: 2016 takes its toll

Prince was found dead aged 57

Dianne King

Published:18:00Updated:19:00Monday 25 April 2016

2016 has been a tough year for, well, anyone who’s a fan of music, TV, or sport. It seems the Grim Reaper has been particularly merciless over the past months. Since Lemmy from Motorhead died at the tail end of 2015, cultural icons seem to have been passing away at an almost daily rate.

David Bowie’s passing sent shockwaves through the world of entertainment in early January, and we were just about recovering the sad news about Alan Rickman broke just four days later.

From then on the toll seems to have been relentless. Music seems to be particularly hard hit, with Colin ‘Black’ Vearncombe, Glenn Frey, Dave Griffin and Merle Haggard dwarfed by the likes of Bowie and of course, the most recent and perhaps most shocking news about Prince, who left us at the age of 57.

But all areas of public life have been affected - TV stars like Terry Wogan, Ronnie Corbett, Paul Daniels, and most recently, Victoria Wood were loved by the British public, while that the other end of the cultural spectrum we’ve also bid farewell to the likes of Harper Lee, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Umberto Eco.

Defining a ‘celebrity’ is tricky of course, but certainly showbiz and culture lists suggest that we have already lost more stars in the first quarter of 2016 that we would expect to pass away in the space of six months.

So, while it seems impossible to cover everyone who has departed so far in 2016, we pay tribute to some of the stars who will be most missed.